Oxbridge recruits fewer state sector pupils

Privately educated students tightened their grip on places at Oxford and Cambridge, despite government pressure on both universities to favour those from state schools.

The proportion of their first-year undergraduates from state schools fell in 2006-7, the year tuition fees rose to £3,000, Higher Education Statistics Agency data revealed. Oxford's state school intake dropped from 53.7 per cent in 2005-6 to 53 per cent, compared-with an "unrealistic" target of

76.7 per cent; Cambridge's fell from

57.9 to 57.6 per cent, with a 77.4 target.

National Union of Students president Gemma Tumelty said the figures were " a damning indictment of government policy".